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TNPSC Group 4 2025 question paper analysis

By the PrepMatic team · Updated 9 Oct 2026 · 4 min read

The TNPSC Group 4 paper of 12 July 2025 had 200 questions: 100 in the Tamil Eligibility-cum-Scoring Test (Part A), 75 in General Studies and 25 in aptitude and mental ability. We read TNPSC's tentative-key booklet and counted the questions unit by unit. The headline: 41 of the 75 General Studies questions came from the two Tamil Nadu-centred units, and about four in five of them used a statement, match or assertion-reason format.

Paper facts

Part B and Part C are evaluated only if you score at least 60 of 150 in Part A, and Part A marks count towards your rank, as the Group 4 exam pattern explains.

Part A: the Tamil paper, unit by unit

The booklet does not label units, so we assigned each question by its content. Units I and II (grammar and vocabulary) overlap too much to separate cleanly, so we count them together.

The paper followed the notification's split closely. Technical-terms questions asked for Tamil equivalents of English terms from history, IT, economics, medicine and office procedure. The reading unit included three questions on one paragraph about V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and two based on Tamil Nadu government policy notes.

Parts B and C: General Studies and aptitude

These counts are our reading, so allow a question or two either way where a topic could sit in two units. The Group 4 2026 notification says unit counts are only indicative, and this paper shows it: Tamil Nadu history ran four questions over, geography two under.

What stood out

• Tamil Nadu was the biggest block. Units V and VI together made 41 of 75 questions (55%). Unit VI alone was 24 (32%), covering Sangam literature, excavations, the Justice Party, Self-Respect Movement and freedom-struggle figures from Tamil Nadu.
• Statements beat one-liners. Roughly 63 of the 75 General Studies questions were assertion-reason (about 19), match-the-following (about 17), statement or "incorrect pair" questions (about 22) or chronological ordering (5). Only about a dozen were plain recall.
• Thirukkural appeared about ten times across the paper: four back-to-back Part B questions on Valluvar and Thirukkural facts, couplet-based questions, and several in Part A.
• A recent-affairs window. Questions touched the Tamil Nadu Economic Survey 2024-25, the January 2025 GSLV-F15 launch, the new Chief Election Commissioner, PM Surya Ghar, and Tamil Nadu schemes such as Illam Thedi Kalvi and Vidiyal Payanam.
• Aptitude was arithmetic-led. Percentages, ratio, HCF and LCM, simple and compound interest, time and work and averages; reasoning covered series, dice, coding and a seating puzzle.

Difficulty (our reading)

Part A was mostly direct Tamil that a prepared SSLC-level reader can finish quickly. In General Studies the difficulty was in the format, not the facts: four-option combinations such as "(1) and (3) only" punish half-knowledge. A few aptitude items, such as HCF of polynomials and a remainder-with-LCM problem, took more steps than routine SSLC arithmetic.

What this means for your preparation

1. Give Tamil Nadu content half of your General Studies time. Start with Tamil Nadu history, culture and heritage and Development Administration in Tamil Nadu, and keep Thirukkural as a fixed daily block.
2. Practise statement-style questions, not only facts. For Indian Polity, write your own true/false statements from each Article and Amendment.
3. Protect the Part A gate. The 60-mark floor decides whether the rest is read, so work through General Tamil and the Tamil Eligibility Test first.
4. Sit this paper as a timed test, then log each miss by unit. The Group 4 previous year questions guide shows a method, and the Group 4 syllabus lists what each unit covers. To see how the paper changed, compare it with the 2024 analysis and the 2022 analysis.

Practising this pattern with PrepMatic

PrepMatic's Group 4 mock follows the real 200-question, 3-hour structure, and you can choose Tamil as your exam language. The free assessment (about 15 untimed questions) shows your weakest subjects, which tells you whether to start with Part A or General Studies. Practice questions on PrepMatic are AI-generated, so use TNPSC's PDFs for the real papers and PrepMatic to drill the units where you lost marks. See TNPSC mock tests for how to use them.

Official sources

• Group 4 2025 question booklet with tentative key (Tamil Eligibility-cum-Scoring Test with General Studies)
• Group 4 2025 final answer key
• Group 4 2025 notification (No. 07/2025)
• TNPSC objective-type answer keys and previous papers

Unit counts here are our reading of TNPSC's booklet, not an official classification. Check the final key and the current notification on tnpsc.gov.in before relying on any detail. Back to the TNPSC guide.

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